The Face He Deserves

I'm not vain about my appearance, sometimes to Wifey and Ds' chagrin.  I tend to dress "below my station," as I was once told, never get manicures (pedis are an acceptable father/daughter activity) and would get plastic surgery only following a, Big Man forbid, fire or massive auto crash.  I NEVER get confused with being a gay man -- unlike many of my friends who tend towards, the, well, metro side.

The last time I spent lots of time examining my face was when I was in my early 20s.  Now, I shave, try to trim any protruding nose or ear hair (another gift of aging) and off I go.  I DO notice when I get too fat, of course, as my chins multiply like a Chinese phone book, but that's about it.

Saturday we were out at a hip young restaurant, with low lighting, and we ran into two of D1's friends.  We shot a photo, I looked at it,and thought "hey -- I look pretty good."  I guess I noticed the weight loss of the past few weeks.  Maybe it was the fact that the photo had me with the two pretty young girls.  But I rather LIKED the picture.

Honestly, though, it showed an older guy -- nearly all gray, and jowly.  If anyone looked at the girls with me, they'd think, right away, either daughter or sugar babies.

Last night, Wifey was going through her mother's old photos, culling a few to save, and tossing the rest.  She came upon a photo of me -- must have been about '95 or so.  I was sporting a full beard.  My hair was completely dark and curly -- sort of like early Springsteen.  I was YOUNG.

Wifey showed it to me with that sort of wistful smile -- ah, the man she married -- really, the boy she married.

I joke that raising two daughters gave me all the gray hair.  It's a joke because I was an unbelievably lucky Dad -- the Ds were awesome kids, very tolerable teens (at least to me), and young women who continue to amaze me.  A big part of my happiness has been their choices in men -- they pick winners, never losers.  So the gray has just come with age, along with the jowels, and bags, and wrinkles.

And I wear them as the badge of life.

One of our Saturday guests remarked that she'd love to be 30 again.  Not me, not at all.  Each wrinkle to me is a marker of great life experiences.  To be 30 again would be giving up all of those tales, and bouts of laughter, and tears.

Orwell was right: at 50, we have the face we deserve.  And I'll happily keep this one, with all its accretion of time.